The most important border for China

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World news analyst Jesus Torquemada. Photo: EITB

Four days before the beginning of the Olympic Games, everybody is looking at China. In that context, the attack perpetrated by Uighur pro-independence groups against a police station in Xinjiang region is going to reach a worldwide spreading, although it is not the first one that has happened.

Xinjiang region is in the northwest of China and Uighurs live there. Uighurs are Muslims and they are related to people of Central Asia, as Kazakhs or Tajiks.

Some of the Uighurs demand the creation of Eastern Turkestan, becoming independent from China, and from time to time the Turkestan Islamic Party commits attacks as the one that killed sixteen police officers.

Although the Tibetan nationalism is the best known and the one that arises most sympathy outside China, Uighur nationalism is the one that really worries China authorities.

In order to carry on with its high economic growth, China is going to need very much the petrol and the gas abundant in Central Asia, Kazakhstan’s and Tukmenistan’s above all.

And oil pipelines and gas pipelines that are going to be constructed must go across Xinjiang. For that reason, the control of Uighur nationalism has become a priority to Beijing.